Category: News

On Tuesday evening, eight people were shot and killed in the greater-Atlanta area. While more and more information is coming out regarding the incident, the gunman targeted a trio of massage parlors, with six of the eight victims being Asian-American women. It is the latest in what has been a steep uptick in anti-Asian hate incidents over the last year, per a report from the group Stop AAPI Hate.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the hashtag #StopAsianHate began trending on Twitter as folks stood alongside the community. A number of current and former NBA players joined in on showing solidarity, expressing love to those who were impacted by the tragedy and demanding an end to all forms of hate.

Among those speaking out is Jeremy Lin, who used his status as the most prominent Asian-American basketball player in NBA history to offer up prayers and rally people to continue fighting for change. In recent weeks, Lin has spoken out about the racism that Asian Americans have faced since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, including being candid about an on-court incident in which he was called “coronavirus” by an opposing player — Lin has made clear he does not want the player identified, but in a statement put out by the NBA following an investigation, it was announced that Lin has met with him.

A series of deadly shootings at three Atlanta-area spas (which left eight people dead, including six Asian women) has left authorities investigating whether the (white) suspect, Robert Aaron Long (21), committed a targeted hate crime. Those fears are naturally rising to the forefront during what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is recognizing as a wave of renewed attacks against Asian Americans amid the continuing U.S. outbreak of COVID-19. The New York Times adds that at least 3,800 Asian Americans have been targeted in hate-inspired incidents over the past year — after ex-President Trump recklessly referred to the disease as the “China VIrus,” a racial slur that he repeated on Fox News on Tuesday night, the same night these spa shootings took place.

NBC News reports that the FBI joined the investigation to assist local authorities, and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has condemned the violence while stating, “[A] crime against any community is a crime against us all.” The New York Times is reporting word from authorities about the investigation into the motive, and there will be backlash, given that Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said of Long, “He does claim that it was not racially motivated… He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction.”

However, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spoke with the AJC and confirmed word from police that four of the late victims were of Korean descent. On social media, Asian-American stars are calling for action with many of the community’s prominent voices, including Santa Cruz Warriors point guard Jeremy Lin, who recently revealed that another player had flat-out referred to him as “‘coronavirus’ on the court.” Lin is calling for change, and he added, “To my Asian American family, please take time to grieve but know youre loved, seen and IMPORTANT.”

Lin was joined by Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star, Simu Liu, who wrote, “Still much we don’t know, but it’s clear to me that the shooter specifically targeted Asian women.”

Padma Lakshmi is standing firm as well: “What happened last night was a hate crime and we should all be treating it as such.”

These voices were joined by Daniel Dae Kim, Mindy Kaling (who specifically calls out “the normalizing of anti-Asian hate speech in the past year”), George Takei, and Olivia Munn, and Lana Condor.

(Via NBC News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New York Times & BBC)

On Tuesday evening, a gunman in Atlanta took the lives of eight people, six of whom were Asian American, at three different massage parlors. The tragedy is believed by many to be racially-motivated and is an unfortunate example of an increased number of hate crimes against Asian Americans that have taken place since the pandemic’s outbreak. Many are calling for an awareness of anti-Asian violence, and John Legend is now the latest celebrity to speak out against the “horrible” news.

According to non-profit organization Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate, nearly 3,800 incidents of violence have been reported since the pandemic. Following the news of the tragic Atlanta shooting, many have shared an outpouring of support for the families affected and their fellow Asian American community members who fear for their own safety.

John Legend, whose wife Chrissy Teigan has a mother from Thailand, took to Twitter to condemn the crimes. “Absolutely horrible,” he wrote. “Sending love to all the loved ones of those whose lives were taken. Our nation needs to reckon with the increased threats being directed at our Asian-American brothers and sisters.”

Lana Condor, singer/songwriter and actor in Netflix’s popular film To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, similarly used her platform to spread awareness. “Wake up… your Asian friends and family are deeply scared, horrified, sick to their stomachs and wildly angry,” she wrote. “Please please please check in on us, please please please stand with us. Please. Your Asian friend needs you, even if they aren’t publicly grieving on social media.”

Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner also posted her thoughts on the upsetting news and shared several examples of racism she and her fellow Asian Americans have faced. “We are white adjacent until we are not,” she wrote. “Til someone calls us a chink, or mocks an accent, claims we started this virus from eating dogs and bats, attacks our elders, targets and kills us. Dunno wtf it does to say stop AAPI [Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders] hate but it is important to acknowledge this is very real.”

There are two ways of looking at Action Bronson’s transformation during the quarantine. You could say he’s experienced some tremendous weight loss, but I prefer to think of it as him making health gains. The Queens, New York chef-turned-rapper focused on making some big life changes thanks to the pandemic shutdown, and he appears delighted to show them off in the season five premiere of his now independently-produced food travel show, F*ck That’s Delicious.

You could call Bronson a prophet of sorts watching this season. He was one of many nationally-known artists harping on ownership and diverse revenue streams pretty early on in the blog era/streaming revolution. He did the latter by starting F*ck That’s Delicious in partnership with Viceland, but he insisted on ensuring the former, which allowed him to retain the show and move it online, which further secured the additional outlet as live touring shut down across America. It’s a pretty impressive thing.

In the first episode of the new season, he cooks up stuffed, Sicilian-style calamari with his trainer outside the gym and details his commitment to transforming his body and getting healthy. His progress is stupendous; he looks way different than he did when he was promoting last year’s Only For Dolphins. He and trainer Dave Paladino talk about how his efforts over the last five months may have saved his life. Then, as only befits the man named Bam Bam Baklava, they eat good.

Watch the season premiere of F*ck That’s Delicious above.

It was reported in 2019 that the average length of a song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was three-and-a-half minutes and that songs that run for under three minutes are becoming increasingly common. So, in general, songs are getting shorter, but now meditation app Calm and Universal Music Group (UMG) taking things in the opposite direction, as they have announced a series of remixed songs that will push their lengths up to an hour.

This Friday (March 19, which is World Sleep Day), Calm will release seven extended tracks: Ariana Grande’s “Breathin’,” Jhené Aiko’s “While We’re Young,” Kacey Musgraves’ “Golden Hour,” Katy Perry’s “Double Rainbow,” Luis Fonsi’s “Sola,” Post Malone’s “Circles,” and Shawn Mendes’ “Wonder.” For three months, the hour-long tracks will be exclusive to the app, but after that, UMG will be allowed to share the songs to streaming platforms.

Calm co-founder and co-CEO Michael Acton Smith told Rolling Stone, “The problem with most music is it’s quite short: When built for the streaming era or even the radio era, it’s three or four minutes long. Even if something is really soothing, you can’t always get into a flow state and drift off to sleep. You have a song for a few minutes and then you go onto the next one and the next one.” He added of the new remixes, “If they’re boring, you’re [less likely] to play them in the first place, and we want your attention. We want you stop thinking about your to-do lists and that silly comment you made at work.”

Courtney Phillips, Calm’s Head of Music also noted, “I was just on a call with an artist’s team talking about tracks. I asked, ‘Would it be cool if he made longer versions?’ And they were like, “Oh my god, he’s been killing us! We keep trying to get him to shorten these down because they’re so long. He would love to make a longer version.’ That’s what we want to be here for. We want to give artists that creative freedom, let them think out of the box and go, ‘Yes! I get to make something really weird, long, and beautiful.” She added, “We didn’t have any comments at all from any of our artists not liking the final mixes. Not one.”

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Chika’s story is as close to a hip-hop fairytale as it’s possible to get. That’s what makes the storybook theme of her latest EP, Once Upon A Time, so apt. The theme is doubly deft when it comes to Chika’s actual rhymes, which are shot through with a dazzlingly visual narrative style; the Alabaman MC is a naturally storyteller, blessed with a gift for understated metaphor and witty lyrical plot twists. That gift comes to the fore on her latest, which builds on the promising foundation laid by 2020’s Industry Games.

Clocking in at a trim six tracks — one fewer than on Chika’s previous effort — Once Upon A Time is not exactly a concept album but it feels like one. It has four songs whose titles play on the concept of the fairy tales from which the EP takes its title, with the intro actually being called “Fairy Tales.” They also express familiar narratives from the form like searching for true love and climbing from rags to riches, but as Chika notes within the first four bars of “Fairy Tales,” “No heroes inside a book look like me.”

Once Upon A Time, therefore, is an effort to change that — not just in storybook form, but in hip-hop as well. Think about how, in the last few years, there has seemed to be a concerted effort by labels to sign and promote more female talent in the genre than ever before. But when you scratch the surface, it can often look and sound like many of these newer rappers are coming straight off a Cardi Clone assembly line. At the risk of sounding like a respectability politics-wielding misogynistic old head, Chika presents a break from the norm.

No, she’s not telling women to cover up and “respect themselves.” She is, however, offering to tell the flip side of a story many of her peers have been serving up in the past few years. She is speaking for women whose hair isn’t augmented by 30-inch bundles, who haven’t been to Dr. Miami, who aren’t usually centered in discussions about beauty and desirability. That goes beyond the surface stuff as well; few rappers in general are telling the “American-born child of immigrants who defies their parents’ American Dream for them to live out their own” story. Chika does here.

On “Hickory Dickory,” Chika shouts out her Nigerian-born parents but also laments the sharp uptick in family members appearing to remind her of their existence now that she’s acquired a modicum of fame. Later, on “Save You,” she addresses her depression, calling her mind a busybody who “make time to plan out a damn pity party.” While mental health is a topic we’ve heard more about recently, it hasn’t often come from anyone who looks like Chika — someone many rap fans can relate to a lot more than the dominant “bad bitch” styles.

The crowning achievement of the album, though, is the two-part “Cinderella.” Aside from being an expertly crafted “art of storytelling” song with a clear plotline and some truly scintillating pen work from Chika, it’s also one of few songs on the mainstream level addressing one of rap’s biggest elephants in the room. Chika tells a “girl meets girl” story, eschewing rap’s usual focus on hypermasculinity where plenty of peers have subverted it. Instead of milking a trick for his dollars, Chika recounts a tender tale of finding a connection — with a woman, no less.

The significance of this is incredible. You see, once upon a time, rappers like Da Brat and Queen Latifah had to keep their queerness on the low, either playing coy about their relationship statuses or playing up their femininity to appeal to male fans and quiet rumors about their sexuality. Later on, Nicki Minaj leveraged her ambiguous attitude to appeal to LGBTQ fans before revealing that she was straight. Dej Loaf was another rapper who felt the need to fend off rumors, refusing to answer either way. Chika being able to write a straightforward love song addressed to a woman is a massive stride for representation and acceptance in hip-hop.

Rappers often come into the game loudly proclaiming that they have a story to tell — word to Biggie Smalls. But over time, it becomes clearer which stories are worth telling, and that’s when artists must grow beyond the bounds of what has already been done. That takes as much courage as it does creativity, and on Once Upon A Time, Chika shows she has both in abundance. While Industry Games was a bold and welcome entrance, her latest is an astonishing display of vulnerability and musicality that assures listeners her story will be worth paying attention to.

Once Upon A Time is out now via Warner Records. Get it here.

Chika is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Deante’ Hitchcock hasn’t announced a follow-up to his excellent 2020 debut album Better yet, but it looks like he’s got his eye on ensuring a bigger, more attention-getting rollout this time around. The Atlanta rapper has spent the last two weeks raising his profile by rapping on other artists’ hits as part of his #NewAtlantaTuesdays initiative and on his latest, he aims to one-up one of the biggest artists out: Drake. Hijacking the beat from Drake’s Scary Hours 2 single “What’s Next,” Hitchcock delivers a witty freestyle showcasing his clever wordplay and relentless flow.

The video accompanying the freestyle takes a similar lighthearted-but-competitive tack, depicting a neighborhood Nerf gun shootout with Hitchcock and his friends. They definitely seem to be having a blast in the video, as does Deante on the track as he snaps off slick lines like “Tell Charmin I’m on a roll and I did this sh*t off the dome / Ain’t signing to TDE, but I got Top on the phone.”

Deante’s last #NewAtlantaTuesdays freestyle found him imitating Tupac and doing the TikTok Junebug Challenge as he rapped to SpottemGotem’s “BeatBox” after capping his stellar 2020 with a live version of Better.

Watch Deante Hitchcock’s “What’s Next” Freestyle above.

Bushmills is Ireland’s oldest whiskey. The area of County Antrim (in Northern Ireland) has a distilling history that goes back to the 1200s. Bushmills pins its foundation to a royal license for distilling, issued in the year 1608. And the current distilling concern dates back to 1784. Regardless of what you consider the distillery’s official start date, it’s clear they’ve been making whiskey for eons.

That history is why we decided to rank their core U.S. line. Well, that and it’s St. Patrick’s Day.

Expression-wise, Bushmills is an interesting brand. They have some very entry-level bottles — classic triple-distilled Irish blends — but they also feature single malts, with three age-statement bottles. While there is a throughline that feels like “Bushmills,” there’s also a marked difference between the blended stuff and the single malts. By trying them all you have the chance to expand your palate and better understand the potential for nuance in Irish whiskeys (even those found within a single brand).

The six bottles below are ranked solely on taste. While the 16 and 21-year-old single malts are very pricy, but that price tag didn’t come into play below. Sláinte!

Related: Ranking The Core Bottles Of Awards Circuit Darling Woodinville Whiskey

6. Bushmills Red Bush

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $26

The Whiskey:

This whiskey is primarily made for the U.S. market. The juice is a classic triple-distilled malt and grain whiskey blend that’s aged in first-fill bourbon casks (that means this whiskey was the first thing to go in the barrel after bourbon).

Tasting Notes:

That bourbon vanilla really shines through on the nose with a touch of wood and a slight nuttiness. The taste holds onto the vanilla as it gets slightly creamy, with thin hints of honey, caramel, and a touch of dark spice mingling with warm malts. The end is short and sweet and leaves you with a twinge of malty alcohol burn.

Bottom Line:

Well… something has to be last. This really feels like a cocktail mixer more than anything else. It’s fine on the rocks but we’d prefer it mixed into an old fashioned.

5. Bushmills The Original

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $26

The Whiskey:

This is Bushmill’s classic and original recipe (so to speak). The grain and malt juices are rested in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks before they’re married, proofed, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a balance of honey and nuts on the nose with a hint of dark berries. The palate delivers on that — in true Irish whiskey fashion — and adds in a slight caramel and vanilla vibe in the background. The malts and grains carry the taste to a short end, with a slight oatiness next to the honey, fruit, and nuts.

Bottom Line:

This narrowly beats our Red Bush simply by feeling more like good old Irish whiskey and not Irish whiskey trying to draw in bourbon drinkers. That aside, this is a workhorse pour. Shoot it, mix it, pour it on the rocks — dealer’s choice.

3 (tie). Bushmills Single Malt Aged 10 Years

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $49

The Whiskey:

The first expression in Bushmill’s single malt range is a winner. The juice is made from Irish barley and matured in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. The best barrels are married, proofed with that soft Northern Irish spring water, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear sense of apples, vanilla, and chocolate malts on the nose. The palate really delivers on those flavors with spicy stewed apple pie with a buttery crust, plenty of fresh honey, and an underbelly of those almost creamy choco-malts. The finish is medium length, full of apple, and very malty.

Bottom Line:

This is a great dram if you’re looking for a killer on the rocks sipper or cocktail base. A nice gateway to the wider world of Irish single malts.

3 (tie). Bushmills Black Bush

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $33

The Whiskey:

This whiskey is a more refined version of the white label. The juice is a blend of grain and malt whiskeys aged in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. The final blend, however, leans more into the single malt juice with a balance set towards the sherry profile rather than the bourbon.

Tasting Notes:

That sherry jamminess and plumminess come through with a hint of vanilla, apricot, and nuts. The palate carries on along that path and adds in a serious Christmas spice matrix with amped-up nuttiness and a touch more vanilla. The end is fairly quick, sherry-fueled with spice and sweetness, and slightly malty.

Bottom Line:

This is a great workhorse whiskey to have on your shelf. It’s an all-around winner for an Irish blend that works really well in a simple whiskey cocktail, a highball, or on the rocks.

2. Bushmills Single Malt Aged 21 Years

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $240

The Whiskey:

This is a special bottle of whiskey. The juice is made with Irish malts and then aged for 19 years in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Those barrels are batched and that whiskey then spends an additional two years maturing in a Portuguese Madeira cask.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a deep, dark chocolate malt vibe on the nose with flourishes of marzipan and prunes. The taste kicks in with a rich and buttery dark toffee covered in roasted almonds, with a hint of dried fruit and equally dried choco-malts. The end is fairly long and holds onto those dried fruits and bitter chocolate malts while leaving you with flavors of sweet and silky toffee.

Bottom Line:

Yes, this is good. Spendy for sure, but this is a celebration bottle you break out when your sibling graduates from college or you land that dream job. It’s not an every-day sipper and feels like something very special.

Over a single rock, this pick really shines. New depths open up and you start to get this dark and spicy brandy-soaked holiday cake vibe. It’s delicious.

1. Bushmills Single Malt Aged 16 Years

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $126

The Whiskey:

This whiskey starts off as the other two single malts on this list, by aging for 15 years in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. The batched juice is then transferred to port pipes for a final nine-month rest.

Tasting Notes:

This starts out with plenty of spicy red berry jam next to a whiff of marzipan and bourbon vanilla. That almond creates a smooth foundation with more of that spicy red jam coming through alongside a honeyed sweetness and velvet mouthfeel. The end of this one is long-ish as the spice, jammy fruit, and almond paste slowly fade out, leaving you warmed.

Bottom Line:

Price aside, this does feel like an everyday sipper. The taste hits on the best marks from the full Bushmills line: Touch of bourbon vanilla, plenty of jammy and spicy notes, and a real sense of sweet almonds.

Try this one neat, then add a rock and explore the depths of the malts — as a bitter espresso and creamy chocolate malt edge arrives, alongside juicier red fruits. This one also makes one hell of a Manhattan.

In 2017, we learned that Fox had “preliminary conversations” with King of the Hill co-creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels about bringing back the Texas-set animated series. But that was the last anyone heard of a revival until this week when writer Brent Forrester was asked in a Reddit AMA for an update. “I am sure Greg Daniels and Mike Judge will murder me for sharing this but… HELL YES,” he wrote. “They are in hot negotiations to bring back King of the Hill. The Trump administration made it suddenly very relevant again. The characters have all aged 15 years. The project is sooooo good. Okay I’ve said too much,” adding a smiley-face emoji for good measure.

King of the Hill ran for 13 seasons and 259 episodes, picking up two Emmys along the way, but there was no steep drop-off in quality. The later seasons gave us Tom Petty as Luanne’s husband Lucky, and for that, we should be forever thankful. We should also be thankful that unlike another long-running animated series on Fox, Texas senator Ted Cruz has never done a Hank Hill impression. At least not on video. I’m sure he does one around his children all the time (when he’s not throwing them under the bus, that is).

Hank and Peggy are both in their early-to-mid 40s and Bobby is 13 on King of the Hill — if the show does come back with the characters all having “aged 15 years,” as Forrester claims, that would be an interesting development. Will Hank have grown more understanding of Bobby in his 60s? Did Hank vote for Trump? What line of work did Bobby end up in? Will he still be voiced by Pamela Adlon? (There’s a plot on her great FX series Better Things where she’s replaced as the voice of the Bobby-like character in the show’s in-universe King of the Hill substitute, Ching of the Mill.)

The only thing I know for sure is: Dale has definitely joined QAnon.

(Via Slashfilm)

NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are the big speculative asset of the moment, so anybody who has any sort of digital object that may be of value is trying to cash in. The latest to do so is Nathan Apodaca, aka Dogface, as he is selling his viral Fleetwood Mac TikTok video as an NFT.

TMZ reports that on Friday, the video will go up for auction on NFT marketplace Rarible.com with a starting bid of $500,000. Apodaca apparently plans to use the proceeds to get his parents a house and open an event center in his hometown of Idaho Falls. There’s a catch with this NFT, though: The audio of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” won’t be included in the video and the Ocean Spray logo on the bottle of cranberry juice he drinks will be blurred, since Apodaca doesn’t have the rights to sell either of those things.

For those who aren’t quite sure what an NFT is, it essentially acts as a unique certificate representing ownership of a digital asset. Wikipedia describes them with more detail, writing, “A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data on a digital ledger (a blockchain) where each unit can represent a unique digital item, and thus the units are not interchangeable. NFTs can represent digital files such as digital art, audio, video, and other forms of digital creative work. While the creative works themselves are infinitely copyable, the NFTs representing them are tracked on the blockchain and provide proof of ownership of the NFTs to the buyers.”